I am Scared!!

Hi Marchers, boy I need your support and prayers, I HAVE HAD THESE TERRIBLE THOUGHTS. I don't know why when we go to have this surgery we have doubts and think of dying but if it was for our gallbladder or something we woundn't think nothing of it did you have those fears have been crying some today and last night I think of me dying and leaving my family and I don't want to leave them is this a normal thought. Please keep me in your prayers.Thank you for your kind words.I have been crying since I heard about Jewell Munn it is so frightnen and I know I have put my life in Gods hands.My grown son who is 18 and my daughter 21 are arguing as we speak about who will do the dishes. I just starting crying and telling them there is more to life than arguing about a sink of dishes. my emotions are over the top is this normal.Love Dawn

Dawn, I too was deeply shocked and saddened by the news of Jewell's passing this morning. Obesity is a terrible illness. Although Jewell's death will go down as being a result of complications of WLS in the statistics, I really think this death is a complication of obesity. I think it would be better to go quickly from a complication than to continue to live with obesity and the challenges it creates in life. Try to find some peace. Jewell had a pre-surgical hernia which was a factor in her complications. And, you're right, keep trying to teach you kids perspective about life. I hope their biggest challenge in life is doing the dishes. Bless you and good luck with your surgery. Rob

Rob, Thank You Thank You THANK you !!! your words help so much can't wait to be on the losing side. I leave tonight my surgery is tomorrow at 11am

If you have total confidence in your surgeon and you know this is the best decision for you then take a deep breath and relax. Try to push them thoughts out of you mind or at least to the back of it. Negative thoughts are not what you need now. Most of us are scared when going into this and it is normal. Try to find something to keep your mind off of it or spend some time with your kids. Find something to do together. All will be well and it will be over soon. You will be happily on the losing side. Keep us posted and let us know if we can do anything to help. LaDonna -20lbs

If I had heard about a tragedy like Jewell Munn's a week before my surgery, it would certainly have made me more frightened than I already was and, of course, I was frightened. Who wouldn't be? Since we are not privy to all of her private information, we cannot know why a surgeon would not fix the hernia, wait, and then do this surgery, or what else is involved. Were I her family, I think I would want some answers. Maybe that's standard procedure, maybe not. Since I don't have a hernia, that's not something I have talked about with my surgeon. I had the same thoughts about leaving my family and my children are about the same age as yours. Mine were bickering in the hospital waiting room, which I think is like when toddlers are naughty because they want their mommies to not be sick. What I know for me, is this. My father died when I was 22 and it was a terrible burden in my life to overcome. I want to be there to help them through adulthood, not just childhood. When the time comes, I want to spoil the heck out of my grandchildren and take them everywhere. I want to be the sort of Grandmother who takes you to Disney World and goes on all the rides with you, then babysits so Mom and Dad can go have a moment. When I was waiting to be taken in, I shut my eyes and imagined what their little faces might look like. If I went out right then (and I thought about this of course), it was a tiny odds against the certainty that my co-morbidities would increase, subjecting my family to years of caring for me and depriving me of caring for them. Since obesity is a silent killer, it is easy to feel one is taking no risk by just leaving things as they are. We all know this is not so. Everyone on this board should check out their surgeon and hospital's record of complication and mortality with regard to this procedure. And if you don't get the straight answers or don't like the answers you get, switch doctors no matter how hard that is to do an complicate. That's my two cents on this very sad morning. Gano

One thing to keep in mind though. It's not just a surgeon's complication rate that matterrs. For example, my surgeon is chief of surgery at University of Washington and is considered the "father" of bariatric surgery in this state. He's been doing WLS since 1978. He readily admits that his complication and death rate is higher than the averages. However, he also gets the most severely complicated cases (i.e. 500, 600, 700 pound patients). These are people who are clearly higher risk to begin with. Statistics are a funny thing and can be manipulated. My surgeon estimates his patients death rate as a result of this surgery to be around 3%. However, I feel as though I'm in the most competent of hands with him.

That is a very good point. I'm more speaking to those who, in their desperation, might not be looking closely. My PCP said "there are people doing this surgery who I would not have operate on my cat." She is pro the surgery, so she is talking about how trendy it has become. When a procedure gets media coverage, the fly by night practitioners crawl out from under their rocks. My PCP found me the best surgeon around and he has been worth every grueling moment I had to wait -- over three months just for the consultation. Gano

I guess I am different than everyone because I had no fear before surgery, And someone did die as a matter of fact everything I heard the week before I went in was about someone dying from some kind of surgery. But like I have said before if you dwell on the negative, you make the negative more real, and why think about this before you go in for surgery? Ask yourself why you are scared? I was more scared of having a heart attack than I was of having the Gastric Bypass. The one time I really thought about it was right before I went into surgery and then as fast as it started to form it went away. I went in with the thought that if I die, then it's my time to go and there is nothing that I can do about it. I guess surgery just makes dying more real but seriously the way the world is today, you could go outside and be shot or run over or any other number of things. I guess because we all knew Jewell it made it more real for us. We all talked to her online and everything. But you cannot dwell on the negative, you just cant. Believe in God that he will bring you through, believe in yourself that you will come through and go into your surgery with a postive mind, a negative mind will work against you, it already has started by your post and how you are feeling, dont let it win! ~Nicole

No Nicole. You are not different than everyone. I have no fear. I do agree with what you say about thought. We all have negative thoughts. They only have power to the extent we give them power and dwell on them. Learning to understand that these are merely thoughts and in and of themselves have no power is very helpful in learning to allow them to pass through us without doing damage to our pshyce.

Thanks Nicole, You all have help me so much I quess it is just losing someone so close to yoiur date reality sets in. I know I am in Gods hands and have ask him to guide me though to the losing end and back to my family a healthier happy person. Thanks for everyone Thats has listen to me cry for days Have always been a sensatative person.